


a dumb screenshot of youth

by absolute_nightmare



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Drunk love confessions, Dubious Consent?, First Kiss, Love Confessions, M/M, No beta we die like mne, but nothing explicit happens at all, i miss these two :(, richie says fuck a lot lol, richie tozier is a certified mess, richie's just very drunk, so idk just to be safe, so is eddie though so, so yknow even better, they work for each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-26
Updated: 2020-08-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:00:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26078353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/absolute_nightmare/pseuds/absolute_nightmare
Summary: “Thereyou are, dipshit,” comes an annoyed voice from below.Somewhere in the back of his floaty, shitfaced brain, he registers the familiarity of the voice, but it doesn’t fully click until he lurches unsteadily over the edge of the roof to blink confusedly at the figure standing on the pavement.And Eddie’s there, face scrunched into an expression of long-suffering amusement, moonlight reflecting off of his cheekbones, wearing those trademark red shorts (they’ll be the death of him, Richie thinks) and that stupid fucking fanny pack, and Richie kind of wishes God would just hurry up and kill him already, the way this night is going.or, richie tozier is having sort of a bad night. eddie manages to make it...not quite as bad.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Kudos: 21





	a dumb screenshot of youth

**Author's Note:**

> these two?? living rent-free in my mind 24-fucking-7
> 
> (title from "sick of losing soulmates" by dodie)

The way the moon glares down at him feels judgemental as fuck, and Richie, for one, doesn’t appreciate it. He flips it the bird as he takes another long drag from the cigarette he’s been nursing for the past hour. The moon, if anything, takes this as a sign to glare even more, so that Richie can feel those fucking craters burning into him, like eyes, like the watching, hating eyes of everyone else in this fucking town, and he wants to scream.

Maybe he’s a little too fucked up.

He’d meant to go to Bev’s. Or Bill’s. Someone’s. He’d developed a routine of sorts, that the Losers had learned not to question — swipe a bottle of alcohol, show up uninvited, drink until he remembered how to breathe without feeling like his chest was imploding. Until even with his glasses on everything looked softer around the edges, his friends’ faces blurry enough so that he couldn’t see the pitying concern darkening their expressions every time they looked at him. He’d meant to, tonight, but somehow instead he ended up alone on his roof, a bottle of tequila and a carton of cigarettes all to himself. 

Richie looks away from the night sky — though the moonlight burns the back of his neck still — and casts his gaze downwards, to the earth, the dirt, his scabbed-up knees peeking through the rips in his jeans, the weather-beaten surface of the roof. He drags a thumbnail across a worn shingle. Stares at the wood that flakes off at his touch. 

His head swims as he thinks about how easy it is for something to flake apart like that, how little time it takes for something to be worn down to nothingness simply by existing and letting the world do with it what it wanted. 

“ _There_ you are, dipshit,” comes an annoyed voice from below.

Somewhere in the back of his floaty, shitfaced brain, he registers the familiarity of the voice, but it doesn’t fully click until he lurches unsteadily over the edge of the roof to blink confusedly at the figure standing on the pavement. 

And Eddie’s there, face scrunched into an expression of long-suffering amusement, moonlight reflecting off of his cheekbones, wearing those trademark red shorts (they’ll be the death of him, Richie thinks) and that stupid fucking fanny pack, and Richie kind of wishes God would just hurry up and kill him already, the way this night is going. 

“Here I am,” he agrees, leaning back onto his elbows with a sigh. 

“Are you coming down, or are you gonna make me climb up there and get you myself?” Richie doesn’t move, just because he knows it will piss Eddie off — and he can tell, by the way Eddie’s voice trails into a series of muttered curses, that it works — and he’s feeling antagonistic tonight. 

He kind of forgets Eddie’s even there, for a second. His vision swims as he stares up at the sky, determinedly looking anywhere _but_ the moon, that judgy bitch, and thinks of nothing but how stupid it is that constellations exist. How a clump of dots is supposed to be this intricate, breathtaking shape — no, it’s just a bunch of white dots. Maybe he’s just an idiot and isn’t looking at them right — more often than not, he’s found, a lot of his problems arise because he’s an idiot. Not understanding constellations, probably, being one of them. 

Then his view of the stars is obscured by another one of his aforementioned problems. 

Well. Eddie _himself_ isn’t necessarily the problem. It’s more that Richie’s initial reaction to Eddie standing over him like that, two dark spots painted on his cheeks from the climb, eyes flashing with annoyance and something else he can’t identify, hands on his hips, is: _he’s so fucking beautiful._ Then he hates himself for thinking that. Out loud, he mutters, “Fucking _stop_ ,” which is more directed at his fucked-up internal monologue, but Eddie seems to take it as being directed at him:

“Maybe if _you’d_ stop sneaking off to get fucked up without telling anyone where you are I wouldn’t have to come up here to drag your ass home, but you do, so here we are, asshole!”

“Wasn’t talking to you,” Richie mutters. Eddie doesn’t appear to have heard him. 

Eddie glowers down at him a moment longer. Then, huffing in exasperation, he moves to sit beside Richie, swiping the bottle of tequila from his fingers as he does. Richie doesn’t protest, just watches as Eddie tilts his head to swallow a few gulps of it — and immediately chokes. 

“ _Fuck_ ,” he gasps, spluttering. “How can you drink this stuff straight? Fucking _gross._ ”

Richie laughs and snatches the bottle back. “Your palette just isn’t as refined as mine, Eds.” Eddie snorts. 

He’s grown, Richie thinks. Physically, sure — he’s taller (though not as tall as Richie), and he has _shape_ now. He fills out his shorts more, and when he leans back to rest his head on his arms, his shirt rides up ( _Jesus fucking Christ,_ Richie groans internally) to reveal a stomach with actual muscle definition. He’d started running track the year before, after he’d finally convinced himself he wasn’t actually asthmatic. _That’s_ really where Richie was most impressed. Eddie’s entire life up until then had been defined by fear: fear of his mother, of getting sick, of other people and their germs, of the whole world. Eddie now was… freer. Looser. He’d tossed his bullshit meds in the trash, told his mother to go fuck herself (Well, in his own way. Richie’s sure that no matter _how_ much growing up he does, Eddie will never have the balls to tell Sonia Kaspbrak to go fuck herself. Which doesn’t matter. Richie would do it in a heartbeat, and as long as _someone’s_ telling that witch to go fuck herself, that’s fine by him.), and decided to stop worrying all the goddamn time. Or try to, anyway. The constant worrying wasn’t something he could just _stop_ , but he was trying. Doing more outside of his comfort zone. Example: Eddie two years ago would never have drunk from the same bottle Richie’s mouth had just touched. The clown, at least, had done one thing for them. It seems sort of stupid to be worried about germs and overbearing parents when you survive a sewer fight with an eldritch being of unimaginable horror. 

Richie doesn’t realize he’s been staring until Eddie elbows him and says, “What the fuck are you staring at?” There’s no malice in it. It’s spoken with that tone he seems to reserve specifically for Richie: equal parts gentle and irritated, like Richie’s an annoying but endearing puppy. 

“Sorry. ‘Was thinking about fucking your mother and I zoned out is all."

He waits for the customary barbed response, but it doesn’t come. In fact Eddie doesn’t say anything at all for several seconds — instead he looks at Richie with his brow furrowed, biting his lip. (Like he’s actively _trying_ to kill him.) Then, in a rush, Eddie says, “I was really worried about you, you know.”

 _That_ takes him off-guard. He struggles into a sitting position and blinks at Eddie, trying to think of a coherent way to respond. He’s still a little — overwhelmingly, actually — distracted by how _pretty_ Eddie looks lounging on the roof. A Greek statue. Michelangelo himself couldn’t make a face that lovely. He’s a fucking work of art and Richie hates it. 

He swallows. “I— what? Why?”

Eddie keeps chewing on his lip, and fixes his gaze back on the sky, rather than looking at Richie. “I just… I don’t know. You’ve been weird lately. You’re drinking all the time. You smoke, like, six fucking packs a day. Tonight, I went to your house because I — well, it doesn’t matter, but you weren’t there, and then Bev didn’t know where you were, and neither did Bill or Ben or Stan and then I just sort of started freaking out because maybe you were dead in a ditch somewhere, or you’d left without telling any of us, or—” He closes his mouth decisively, inhaling deeply through his nose. “And it isn’t just me. Everyone’s — they all think there’s something up, too.” 

Richie wants to cry. He knows if he keeps looking at Eddie, he will. So he scoffs and takes another long drink of tequila to avoid it. 

“ _Hey_ ,” Eddie says, kicking him. “You’re not doing this, dickface. There’s something going on. Talk to me, would you?”

“Why,” Richie responds, laughing through his words, “Would I do that? ‘s not like you could do anything about it.”

“You don’t have to be a dick about it.”

“Actually, yeah, I think I kinda do, or you’ll jus’ keep fucking pestering me about it. Tha’s what you do, you nag and nag and won’t shut the fuck up about whatever it is until someone gives you the answer you want to hear.” Richie isn’t entirely sure where this is coming from. He registers, somewhere in his mind that’s still thinking rationally, that he absolutely should not have said any of that, but for some reason he doesn’t care, because suddenly the sight of Eddie with that fucking kicked puppy look in those _gorgeous_ eyes makes him sick to his stomach, and Richie just wants him _gone._

Eddie sits up, too, furious and hurt and at a loss for words. He struggles for a moment, then settles on, “Fine! Fine. _Fuck_ you. Sorry I wanted to fucking help.” He rises to his feet, wobbling, and, once he regains his footing, stalks back to the edge of the roof, and begins to climb down. He pauses before he’s disappeared fully from Richie’s view. “You know, if you keep treating the people who care about you like this, soon no one’s going to fucking bother,” he spits, and finally leaps down to the ground. 

Richie stays there, frozen and trembling with — anger? No, he isn’t angry. He’s — fuck, he’s an _idiot._ The fight drains out of him all at once, leaving him with a ball of alcohol-soaked fear in his chest. Fear, because it’s hitting him that maybe he just ruined his most important friendship, and God, being around Eddie hurts enough as it is, but he couldn’t _stand_ it if Eddie never talked to him again. Unsteadily, he clambers to his feet and shinnies down the roof, miraculously landing on the ground without breaking anything. 

Eddie is nowhere to be seen. Cursing, Richie takes off at a staggering jog, trusting his feet to remember the way to Eddie’s house even if his brain can’t. 

The world spins as he runs. He has to stop to vomit in some bushes at one point. 

He feels like he’s going to pass out by the time he reaches the house. For a second, he’s sure he really is going to: everything tilts on its side, and the night is painted a weird violent shade of green, and his stomach feels like it’s going to crawl out of his throat. He forces himself to stay upright, breathing deeply, and it subsides.

But he’s made it. And Eddie’s bedroom light is on, which is promising. He scrabbles on the ground until he finds a pebble the right size.

He throws it as hard as he can at Eddie’s window, and is rewarded by the glass immediately swinging forward as Eddie opens the window to lean out and hiss, “ _What the fuck?_ ”

Richie spreads his arms, grinning crookedly. “I fucked up. Can I come inside?”

Eddie glares at him. “You’re such a fucking _prick,_ you know that?”

“Yeah, one of my many wonderful qualities: being a fucking prick. That means I can come in, though, right?”

Eddie doesn’t answer. He does leave the window open, though, as he ducks back inside, which Richie decides to take as an invitation. 

He’s made the climb up to Eddie’s bedroom more times than he can count. He’s done it drunk, too, but never _this_ drunk, and normally he’s drunker going down than he is going up. He very nearly slips, but somehow manages to catch himself in time — he allows himself a moment to recover from it, and Eddie’s head reappears in the window, this time much less pissed off and much more concerned. 

“God, you’re going to kill yourself,” he mutters, reaching a hand to pull Richie the rest of the way up. Eddie’s surprisingly strong for someone so small. 

Richie collapses on the carpet of Eddie’s bedroom gracelessly, chest heaving, trying not to vomit again. 

“You look terrible,” Eddie says, crossing his arms. Richie struggles back to his feet.

“You’re so sweet, Eds,” he groans. Eddie regards him, still glaring, and it takes Richie a few seconds to remember why he’d run all the way over in the first place. “Look, Eddie, I — fuck, I’m an asshole, okay? I’m sorry. I — I didn’t —” he sways on the spot and almost falls before he can finish. The room refuses to focus; everything’s bobbing back and forth like a fucking Tilt-a-Whirl. 

He feels more than he sees Eddie rush forward to steady him. He puts a hand on his waist and an arm around his shoulder, guiding him to the edge of his bed, and Richie is sure that if he were sober, that kind of physical contact with Eddie would make him spontaneously combust. As it is, he’s beyond fucked up, and the hand at his waist just makes him feel even worse — here’s Eddie, being kind, helping him, when he doesn’t deserve it in the slightest. Eddie should probably just let him fall on his face and choke on his own puke. 

Richie doesn’t really have the energy to say that, though, so he just sags onto Eddie as they both sit on the bed, inhaling the familiar smell of laundry detergent and sandalwood shampoo, and something else, something herbal and sweet that he can never quite identify but that is so uniquely _Eddie_ it makes him want to cry. 

“It’s okay,” Eddie murmurs. “I know you’re an asshole. We’re good.” He is speaking too quietly — it’s too _intimate_ , sitting there on top of his comforter, the bedside lamp filling the room with a soft golden glow, and Richie would rather they were yelling at each other, bickering like they usually do. 

It takes several moments for him to realize he’s still leaning on Eddie, and he hastily rights himself. As well as he can, given how things are still swimming in and out of focus. 

Richie takes a steadying breath. “You’re right. ‘m — not — there’s something wrong. A lot of things wrong. Mostly just one thing. Well, no… all of them are — fuck, I don’t know.” He stops, trying to collect his thoughts and turn them into something semi-coherent. “You ever….” Another stop. Another breath. _Just fucking say it._ He fixes his gaze on Eddie’s desk, across from his bed. There’s a cassette player sitting on it. He wonders if he could make Eddie a tape. If he’d ever listen to it, or if it would sit there, unplayed, collecting dust. 

“Is it because Bev and Ben started dating?” Eddie says after it’s clear Richie isn’t going to continue. 

Wait. Wait. What? Is he so drunk he’s starting hallucinating? What the fuck does he say to that? 

“Um. No?” He’s very confused. He’s sure this wasn’t where this conversation was going a few minutes ago. 

“Oh. I thought — you seemed — you sorta fell off the deep end right when that started. So I thought — I don’t know.”

Truth be told, Richie had forgotten about Bev and Ben’s blooming romance entirely. He’d been preoccupied, with staring at Eddie, and thinking about Eddie, and then thinking about how much he hates himself for staring at and thinking about Eddie. And — wait: “Do you think I have a thing for _Bev_?” 

“Well — I mean, you’re always hanging out, and she’s always giving you tapes, and — why are you laughing, dipshit?” 

Richie can’t _breathe_ for how goddamn hilarious this all suddenly seems. Doubly so, for how much time he’s spent at Beverly’s this summer, specifically to talk about how hopelessly head over fucking heels he is for his best friend. “Oh my _god. No_ , I don’t have a thing for Bev. Fucking — _god_ , no.” 

“I just thought…” Eddie trails off, looking unsure. His profile is lost in shadow, and Richie has to fight the urge to take his chin and tilt his face back into the light. “Bill said,” he starts again, quiet, “that you seemed heartsick. I asked him what he thought was going on with you and he said, _Richie looks heartsick._ So I thought maybe it was because of — Bev.”

There’s a note of bitterness undercutting his words, and Richie desperately hopes he isn’t imagining it.

“Heartsick,” Richie repeats. “Yeah, I, uh — that’s not...wrong.”

“Some other girl at school, then.” It sounds like it should be a question, but Eddie’s voice has gone completely flat. “Is — Veronica Schultz, maybe, you’re always making moony eyes at her in English —” Richie doesn’t let him finish: he leans over in a rush — more like _lurches_ over, really — and presses his lips to Eddie’s.

(Yeah. Maybe he’s a little too fucked up.)

They’re both frozen, for a second — no, minutes — no, fucking _years_ — and then Richie really registers what’s happening, and he sort of wants to throw up again, except then he realizes that Eddie’s mouth tastes like toothpaste and mint chapstick, and his lips are the softest fucking thing Richie’s ever felt (like velvet, his lips, or maybe the sleeves of his favorite sweater, or a million other wonderful soft things), and then he can’t string any more thoughts together because he’s kissing _Eddie fucking Kaspbrak._

He’s kissing Eddie Kaspbrak. 

Eddie Kaspbrak is kissing _him._

There’s a little breathless moment where they break apart and just hover there, millimeters from each other, breathing each other’s air and trying to remember how to talk. Eddie’s face is flushed a brilliant dark red, and his eyes are bright and wide and confused, and _fuck,_ he’s beautiful. 

“I don’t —” Richie’s voice sounds hoarse, when he finally finds it again. He tries again: “I don’ have a thing for Veronica Schultz.”

“Yeah, no, I, um, I think you — I think you got that point across.” Eddie’s expression is pained, which breaks Richie’s heart, a little. 

Probably, Richie thinks, he’s trying to figure out the nicest way to tell you that he thinks you’re fucking disgusting and he never wants to talk to you again. 

He’d been mistaken, earlier. Obviously Eddie hadn’t been kissing him back. (He’d never kissed anyone before, so how would he know?) Obviously this whole thing was a stupid, stupid idea, and Richie’s way too drunk (thank _god,_ at least he has an excuse for being such an idiot) to really work out why he’d even kissed Eddie in the first place, because _fucking obviously he’d been wrong in thinking Eddie would ever want anything to do with him._

And then:

“Can I kiss you again?” asks Eddie, shyly, as if it isn’t written all over Richie’s face how relieved he is to hear Eddie ask. 

“Fucking. _Yes._ Kiss me whenever you want. _Fuck._ ”

Eddie does. Richie feels lighter than he’s ever felt. “You kiss your mother with that mouth?” laughs Eddie, pulling away. 

“Nah, but I do kiss yours.” It’s automatic, the mom jokes; Richie’s feeling kind of high, and he’s sure if Eddie doesn’t shut him up again soon he’ll say something really stupid, something like _I’ve been thinking about this moment for years now,_ or, _I think I could die right now and it would be okay because I’ve never been so happy,_ or, _I love you._

Instead of the customary, “Shut _up,_ Richie,” Eddie just kisses him again. Is that what they’re doing, instead of “shut up”, now? Richie swears he won’t ever stop talking, if that’s the case. 

“I’m really fucking drunk right now,” says Richie. And then, because it seems important to explain: “But I’m not — I didn’t do this jus’ because I’m drunk. I’ve kinda wanted to kiss you for…I don’t know. A long fucking time.”

Eddie laughs into his mouth. ( _Exquisite, that sound._ ) “Thanks for the clarification.” He does pull away, though, his brown eyes suddenly serious. “This is…not something we should talk about while you’re this fucked up.”

He’s right, Richie knows — or, at least, the small corner of his brain that can still think with something that resembles rationality does — but that doesn’t stop his stomach from flipping in disappointment. (Or maybe his stomach’s just flipping because he’s about to hurl again.) “Do y—do you want me to leave?”

“I’m not sure you can make it back out the window without breaking your neck. You might as well stay over.” It takes them both a second to register, in light of the way the night’s gone, the implications of a normally innocuous invitation, for them. Eddie flushes, if possible, even darker. “Uh, but, I mean, not — not because — just to... sleep.”

Richie grins as he scooches back against Eddie’s pillows. “If I didn’t know any better, Eds, I’d think you were trying to do something _unsavory_.” He fans his face exaggeratedly, and adopts a high Southern belle-esque accent. “Why, Mister, I’m a woman of honor! I won’t be swayed by your wicked advances!” 

Eddie swats his leg. “Shut up, Tozier.” He curls into the space next to Richie, and draws the blanket at the foot of his bed over both of them. “And don’t _call_ me that.”

Richie wants to say something else, something witty and loveable, but the second he’s settled against the pillows his eyelids start to droop. (He supposes there’s nothing like half a bottle of tequila and a night of (perhaps ill-advised) crush confessions to really tire someone out.)

He fumbles under the blanket and, finding Eddie’s hand, laces their fingers together, and presses his face into Eddie’s hair. He’s asleep a minute later, the smell of Eddie’s shampoo following him into unconsciousness.

**Author's Note:**

> dear god. i am so inconsistent. apologies, and i beg your forgiveness. the last thing (and only thing that's actually posted on this account right now lol) i posted was a good omens story, a solid year ago, but suddenly i'm motivated once again to finish up some of the things sitting in my drafts, and thus, a reddie fanfic appears in the year of our lord 2020. anyway, this was sort of messy (all my writing is, because, as mentioned, i am so effing inconsistent) and the ending was SUPER rushed but i had fun writing it!! so i hope y'all had fun reading it!!! thank u for coming this far, if u have, and i hope u all have a wonderful rest of ur day :)


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